About

Animated Short Film Wins Awards Around the World

March 24, 2016

Claire and the Keys

In a hot, third floor hostel room in-between teaching sessions during a summer 2010 Study Abroad trip in Poland, Professors John Ludwick and Dan Baldwin began hashing out a story line for a short animation. Six years of work and over 29,000 digital paintings later, a team of Indiana artists is being recognized around the world for the Short Film entitled Claire and the Keys. The 20-minute short tells the story of Claire and her Mom who are shopping buddies, texting buddies, and the best of friends... until Claire wants music lessons.

Ludwick, the film’s Director, now an Assistant Professor of Art and Animation at Ball State University is excited to see that the difficult work has paid off. "Making a film is hard. Harder still to make one right. And harder still to find people willing make the sacrifices for Story. Indiana's animation community allowed me to collaborate with people who were professional enough to make those sacrifices."

Dan Baldwin, Director of Computer Graphics Technology, contributed concept art, color keys, and designed the official film poster. "It was in those first moments talking with Dan about the story I wanted to do I wondered, 'How am I going to make this thing?!'

And I knew I had to do it, and I had to collaborate with solidly-grounded artists along the way."

Since the first official festival selection in 2015, Claire and the Keys has already won four Best Animated Short Awards, two Best Animation Screenplay awards, and First place Animated Musical. The film has screened in Hollywood twice, the UK, Germany, and New Zealand’s prestigious Show Me Shorts Film Festival. The film continues to garner attention in the film festival circuit.

Join John Ludwick, along with the film’s Sound Designer and Mixer Brice Bowman, for his presentation 29,000 Paintings Later on April 11 at 6pm in the Campus Center Theater (CE 002). John will screen his film and discuss what it takes to create an award-winning short film. The event is open to the public, and is sponsored by Computer Graphics Technology and IUPUI SIGGRAPH.